Bobthebirder's Video Blog

Radipole Lake
Monday April 15th 2013

One of our earliest summer migrants is not a warbler or a swallow but a duck.
The garganey is a small duck a bit like a teal (the French call it the 'teal of the summer') that winters in central Africa.
You can often see them in the background of TV programmes about hippos or other African wildlife drinking at waterholes.

This year Radipole Lake had quite an influx of them at the end of March.
This is the first one I found, on March 26th not far from the Discovery Centre.

This next one was in front of the North Hide, one of five there on April 7th.
It seems to have hiccups.

Now a closer view of a drake garganey preening next to a teal, taken on April 9th.
At the end it goes to sleep and you can see how important it is for it to have a white eyelid.
If the eyelid was dark like its eye other garganey would not be able to tell if it was awake, and keeping an eye out for predators, or asleep.

Today I filmed a female garganey for the first time.
This pair were in front of the North Hide again and are filmed alongside teal which helps to emphasise the subtle differences between a female garganey and the much more common female teal.

UPDATE: On April 16th a drake came even closer to the camera, so I've added the video here.